Photograph of Mr Roy Grant and Dame Rosemary Butler AM at his book launch in Duffyrn, for his book titled Patchwork Culture.

Mr Grant had overcome many obstacles and challenges in his life, but when a haemorrhage in his good eye left him completely blind, he was finally forced to accept that he was a disabled person.

He was almost 50 and struggling to read or put words together. It was time to go back to school.

Helped hugely by the positive attitudes of other disabled students and his excellent community education tutors, he was encouraged to write about his early experiences in the UK.

And that, he claims, was the beginning of his writing career. Several books followed, recording for future generations not only his own life story but those of other first generation Afro-Caribbean people who came to live in Newport.